1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to data services and, more specifically, coupling third-party software to a data services package.
2. Description of the Background Art
Sybase Adaptive Server Enterprise (“ASE”) is a high-performance relational database management system (“RDBMS”) used by a diverse set of clients for an equally diverse set of applications. Database products in general are found in use in many settings, and therefore must adapt to each particular database administrator's needs.
Various competing database products have afforded end-users some level of customization of the product by implementing a number of software features which several prominent end-users may request. For example, Sybase has previously demonstrated the ability to integrate the Java Virtual Machine (“JVM”) into ASE in order to run high-level object oriented code from within ASE. Such a feature is desirable to a number of clients. However, further maintenance of ASE with integrated JVM would require maintenance not only of ASE, but also of the various integrated components.
The task of maintaining not only the primary database software, but also each of the tightly-integrated parts, would be daunting. It would likely require a dedicated team for the purpose of porting the component to be integrated, such as JVM, and to maintain that component. Such maintenance would involve not only ensuring future compatibility with the revisions to the ASE core components, but also applying bug fixes and other updates to the JVM itself.
Moreover, it is possible to abandon certain integrated components once they become obsolete. However, even such deprecated functionality often remains through several iterations of a software product in order to ensure that end-users have an opportunity to rewrite their applications accordingly, without forcing the end-users to remain on an unsupported version of the software. This causes the database software footprint to grow from both new features as well as the obsolete features.
Enabling third party integration with ASE presents several problems itself. If the third party software contains bugs or signals error messages to the ASE, the software's erratic behavior could affect the performance of the ASE software. Moreover, providing the typical hooks for integration with a software package like ASE may expose security breaches within the ASE software which third party application developers could exploit. Additionally, function calls made to the third party applications may require a long wait time for a response, blocking ASE and hanging or delaying critical processes.
Integrating third party software with ASE also presents legal issues. Licensing issues with the third party software might prevent integration with ASE, or may have terms for integration which cannot be met based on the functional character of ASE.
Accordingly, what is desired is a database system which provides component integration without requiring a high level of core integration support, while at the same time defending against issues that arise from integration with third party applications.